1. Field of the Invention
The invention is drawn generally to the certification of business practices through maturity models and more particularly to the tracing of a company's practices to the those of at least one designated maturity model.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, many contracting parties require potential contractors to be certified at predefined levels of one or more maturity models. The basis for many maturity models is Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) Version 1.1 for software released in 1993, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Variations on the original CMM as well as other specialized maturity models have since been developed to aid contracting parties and contractors alike in determining and certifying the engineering maturity of a specific contractor. For example, based on the original CMM, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), P-CMM People Capability Maturity Model, SA-CMM Software Acquisition Capability Maturity Model, SE-CMM Systems Engineering Capability Maturity Model, and IPD-CMM Integrated Product Development Capability Maturity Model have since been developed. Similarly, many other maturity models, based, for example, on industry standards, are also recognized. Contracting parties select one or more of these maturity models based on the work product sought and specify that potential contractors responding to requests for proposals or requests for bids meet a predetermined level within the selected model or models. Consequently, potential contractors spend a significant amount of time and money attempting to determine their level within a particular model and obtain certification. In some cases, a single company may be involved in trying to certify their maturity against numerous models at the same time. Considering that each model specifies a different set of “best practices” requirements, contractors must attempt to trace their individual business practices to each set of “best practices” for each model.